Psychology resit revision

an evolving unit of knowledge and cognitive structure containing information that will guide behaviouir

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what is meant by adaptation?

adjusting behaviour to cope with the environment.

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What is Assimilation?

A new experience is understood in terms of an existing schema. E.g. a child having to drink out of a normal cup rather than a 'sippy cup'

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What is accomidation?

Modifying an existing schema to fit new experiences. E.g. modifying your drinking schema to enable you to drink out of a normal cup after practicing.

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What is disequilibrium

An existing schema is not suitable for the new experience. e.g. child being unable to dtink out the cup without pouring juice over them.

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What is equilibrium

the state achieved when assimilation and accomidation are balanced. e.g. the child can successfully drink from the cup.

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What stage happens during the ages 0-2?

Sensorimotor - Thinking is based on sensations and motor movement. e.g. by the end of the stage children will understand the permenence of objects.

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What is meant by object permenence?

he understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be observed (seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any way)

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what is a counter argument for piagets idea that children learn object permenence?

Belergion - we do not learn object permenence we are born with it. (study of possible/impossible event.)

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What stage occurs during the age 2-7?

Pre operational - use of symbolic representation involving language but reasoning is limited. e.g. children have difficulty understadning what other people can see. (Egocentrism) and are unable to conserve.

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What is Egocentrism?

the inability to see or understand something from a view point other than their own.

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What is conservation?

the ability to understand that if nothing has been added or taken away from something then the amount reamins the same even when appearences have changed. piaget - children unable to conserve due to centration.

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What did piaget mean by centration?

Concentrating on one feature, and as a result, failing to see the relevance of another feature.

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What is the 3 mountains task?

Piaget - children aged 4-12 were asked to arange card to show what could be seen from 2 different positions on the moutains. Children had to pick pictures most similar to each view seen by doll when seated at different positions.

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What are the results of the 3 mountains task?

youngest children were unable to distinguish between their own viewpoint and that of a person situated in a different position. at 7 children started to do this and 9+ were much more successful,

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what did piagets study of centration involve?

set out row of sweets and coins each have same number of items and asked "are there the same number in each row" then one of the rows was extended children were asked if there were more sweets or coins.

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What were the results of piagets study of centration

usually children younger than 6 would reply there were more items in the longer row. this was taken to show that children cannot conserve the number of items.

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Why was piagets study on centration critisised?

piaget asked the question twice to make sure childs view had changed but might have affected the answer the child gave, as they may have thought their first answer was wrong.

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how did mcgarricle and donaldson study centration?

2 conditions. in one condition the alteration was made by the experimenter (making row of beads longer) in another made by accidents by a 'naughty teddy' who swooped down and messed up the game and make one row longer than another.

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What are the results of mcgaricle and donaldsons study?

When the experimenter altered the length 16% children showed conservation. When naughty teddy altered the length 62% showed conservation.

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What did piaget mean by class inclusion?

Understanding of the relation between a class of objects and subclass of objects. (e.g. an apple can be classed as a fruit but also as a colour such as red or green.)

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how did piaget study class inclusion?

A box of brown wooden beads and two white beads was used.The children were asked whether the box had more brown beads or more wooden beads.

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What were the results of piagets study of class inclusion?

Only children above 6 years were able to answer correctly.

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What stage occurs during the ages 7 - 12

Concrete operations - limitations in reasoning are overcome but children are still better are 'real' (concrete) tasks than abstract tasks. can't engage in hypothetical thinking, can't think systematically.

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What is piagets study of Conservation?

children were shown identicle containers with same amount of liquid in. the liquid in one container was poured into two smaller containers. The children were asked whethere there was the same amount of liquid in large as in the 2 smaller ones.

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Results of piagets study of conservation?

Children below 7 were not able to conserve volume.

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What stage occurs during the years 12+?

Formal operations - able to reason abstractly and hypothetically and hypothesis can be made up and tested. (pendulum task)

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Evaluation of piaget?

Use of language in studies, e.g. in conservation using 'more'. Questioning was not the same for all children. Used own children - biased, Only qualatative data gathered. Foundations for further research. Underestimated children. focuses on environmen

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What did Vygotsky mean by the 'Zone of Proximal Development'

The area between a childs actual development and the potential level that could be achieved with the help of someone more experienced.

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what is a sociolcultural theory?

Assumptions that social interaction provides the context for the development of human capabilities and functioning and that social interactions in which learning occurs will be influenced by cultural context.

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what did vygotsky mean by scaffolding?

providing a supportive framework within which the child can learn. This can accelarate learning, contradicting piagets view.

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What is meant by guided participation?

A type of scaffolding specifically involving the transmittion of culural norms and values e.g. decorating a christmas tree.

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what is wood and middeltons study?

Task involved putting 21 wooden blocks together to form pyramid like structure. The mothers were shown how to do the pyramid before the session. At the end, each child tried to build the pyramid without help.

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What are the results of wood and middeltons study?

The following types of behaviour; general verbal instruction, Drawing attention to materials, Preparation, moddeling. The mothers who changed there help on basis of childs response = child succeed.